Same-sex marriage in New York

The New York State Senate voted to legalize same-sex marriage on June 24, 2011. Several Republican senators voted with the Democrats, so even though the chamber has a Republican majority, the bill still passed. It was pushed for heavily by the liberal Governor Andrew Cuomo. In the opinion of many conservatives,[Who says?] the Republican senators who voted for the bill betrayed their constituencies, who sent them to Albany to defend the sanctity of marriage. Only one Democratic senator opposed the bill, Ruben Diaz, from the Bronx. Senators James S. Alesi, Roy J. McDonald, Stephen M. Saland, and Mark Grisanti were the Republicans who supported it.[1] For people like the Roman Catholic Grisanti, this conflicts with the core tenets of their faith.

The bill had previously passed with much more ease in the state Assembly, which is traditionally a much more liberal body (indeed, multiple eventually unsuccessful bills to legalize gay marriage had cleared the chamber in the past).